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The End of the Oil Age
geekstreak quotes "'The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.' Ways to break the tyranny of oil are coming into view. Governments need to promote them."
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You are quite correct. The "Hydrogen Economy" buzzword-crap refers to the idea of using hydrogen as an energy distribution mechanism, like a battery. You "charge up" your hydrogen tank by using electricity to split H out of H2O, and the electricity has to come from somewhere. You are also correct that it will come from whatever's cheapest, and only the environmental nuts with rooftop PV panels will make hydrogen cleanly.
However-- that's not the point. At least not initially. The idea is to transition to an infrastructure that does not depend on any particular generation method. This opens the way for your car to be powered by anything-- not just gasoline. Once you can put hydrogen in, you're no longer tied to a single source. As more efficient generators and methods (nuclear, solar, excercise-club treadmills) come into play, your existing car will be able to immediately take advantage of them.
To sum up, you're right. It will still be gasoline and coal on the backend for a long while. But every time a more efficient nuke plant pops up, cars can instantly switch their power source by just sourcing hydrogen from somewhere else. Contrast that to our existing infrastructure, where to take advantage of a more efficient generation method or fuel source, you need a new car for each technology advance (say, hybrid vehicles or VW diesels) or non-gasoline-compatible fuel.
It's just a way to disconnect generation from distribution and usage, and it works a hell of a lot better than a stack of Li-ion batteries that weighs as much as your car.
We say gas is expensive, but it's not -=that=- expensive. Consider that gallon of milk can run you twice what a gallon of gas costs.
Similarly, consider the price of a handle of vodka. Almost every refined product we purchase costs more per gallon than gasoline.
The real question should be this. At what level are US Citizen prepared to take drastic means to keep energy prices down? California seems to be tolerating relitively high gas prices in comparison to the rest of the US. Admittedly it's California, so there's a bit of inherent irrationality there, but they haven't done a whole lot more than lobby for their regulations to be implemented on the national level.
When push comes to shove I think it would take a massive shift in policy almost completely by suprise. If gas prices climb slowly you won't see a change. If they spike upward (like if the Mid East decides tomorow it doesn't want to sell oil to the US and we're stuck with no one but Vesesuela) suddenly however, I think you'll see a bunch of angry SUV driving soccer moms.
A slow rise in gas prices might lead to exploration of alternative energy sources. When gas hits $3.50 a gallon I think you'll see a real economic pressure to provide super fuel efficient cars etc. Similarly as electric bills rise you'll see more money going to alternate sources of electric energy as well.
As for jumps, I think we'd have to hit around $6 a gallon... maybe more before you saw a real unapologetic war for oil. Most of the US population isn't as bloodthirsty as the rest of the world belives us to be (complaicent yes, bloodthirsty no). To get the public to rally behind a war of conquest for a material good you'd have to see some pretty rough consequences from pasifism.
Killfile(TGK)
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